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Chris Reij

Bio

Chris Reij is a Sustainable Land Management specialist and a Senior Fellow of the World Resources Institute in Washington. He supports the work of the Global Restoration Initiative.

He has worked in Africa since 1978. Although he has maintained a focus on the West African Sahel, Chris Reij has been involved in numerous studies and consultancies in other parts of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific. His main fields of research and writing are related to restoration of degraded land in semi-arid regions, farmer innovation in agriculture, long-term trends in agriculture and environment and analysis of successes in agriculture and land management in Africa. He is the facilitator of "African Re-greening Initiatives", which supports farmers in adapting to climate change and in developing more productive and sustainable farming systems. This initiative was launched to help scale up proven successes in re-greening by individual farmers and communities. It is operational in Burkina Faso and Mali, and is expanding to other African countries. It collaborates with VU University’s Network Institute in a Web Alliance for Re-greening Africa.

Chris Reij was honored by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) as Global Drylands Champion 2013.

The New York Declaration on Forests issued at the UN Climate Summit last month includes a global pledge to restore 350 million hectares of deforested and degraded landscapes by 2030.

Several countries confirmed their commitment to restore millions of hectares of degraded land, with Ethiopia making one of the most significant pledges—setting a target to restore 15 million hectares of degraded and deforested land into productivity by 2025.

Experts recently said that 20 million people in Africa's Sahel will face hunger this year, requiring $2 billion in food aid. The question is: Can the Sahel cost-effectively and sustainably increase food production?

Innovative farmers are beginning to demonstrate how agroforestry and other relatively simple practices can significantly boost food production in Africa’s drylands. In fact, according to a new WRI working paper, improving land and water management on just 25 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s 300 million hectares of prime cropland would result in an additional 22 million tons of food. This strategy could go a long way towards sustainably feeding Africa—and the world.

If you want to know how to grow crops in the face of climate change, drought, and land degradation, ask Ousséni Kindo, Ousséni Zoromé, or Yacouba Sawadogo—three farmers in Burkina Faso’s Yatenga region.

Policy makers, researchers, and NGO representatives gathered earlier this year at a workshop in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso to discuss strategies on combating food insecurity and adapting to climate change. Attendees at the event—organized by the group Network for Participatory Approaches to Research and Planning (Réseau MARP Burkina)—heard from several of Burkina Faso’s farmers on how they produce food on degraded lands. The farmers and participants provided interesting insights into climate-smart agriculture methods—including how to scale up these practices throughout the nation.

President Obama is in Africa this week to discuss development, investment, health, and, notably, food security. The trip comes on the heels of the president’s groundbreaking announcement of a U.S. Climate Action Plan. So it’s a fitting time for Obama and other global leaders to take notice of a strategy that addresses both climate change and food security in Africa—re-greening.

Re-greening—a process where African farmers manage and protect trees that grow on their farms, rather than cutting them down—is already beginning to transform the continent’s drylands. Supporting and scaling up the low-tech process can not only increase crop yields in drought-prone regions, it can mitigate climate change and reduce rural poverty.

The History of Re-greening in Africa’s Drylands

Re-greening in Africa first garnered international attention back in 2007, when the New York Times published a front page article entitled “In Niger, Trees and Crops Help Turn Back the Desert.” Lydia Polgreen, who was the NYT’s West Africa bureau chief in those days, had visited Niger and reported “at least 7.4 million newly tree-covered acres.” The NYT article revealed that this large-scale re-greening was not due to expensive tree-planting projects, but was the result of farmers protecting and managing young trees that regenerated on their cultivated land.

This re-greening did not happen everywhere. It was observed in particular in dryland regions with high population densities. Life in dryland areas presents many challenges, and farmers and decision makers are continuously searching for ways to restore their resilience and agricultural productivity.

Publications

A Practical Approach to Forest and Landscape Restoration

Scaling Up Regreening: Six Steps to Success highlights the benefits of “regreening” and its widespread adoption in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, northern Ethiopia and Malawi, and identifies six steps to scale up regreening practices in Africa and beyond.